Through a Monster's Eyes
by StopandSmellthePotatoes
Summary: Although he has been defeated by the Avengers and taken back to Asgard as a prisoner, Loki still seems to possess Clint Barton's mind.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One-Aftermath

Natasha doesn't ask many questions, and I'm glad of it. She can see in my eyes, no longer the frosty blue of possession and poison, how much I am hurt, and she understands that I have wounds to lick. And she can empathize when my wounds are licked by shooting things.

When it's over, and Thor has taken Loki back to their little world, golden Asgard, I have time to sit and think. Before, it was madness. There was no time to think and remember what had been done to me because of the attack. But now, as I sit unnoticed in a darkened bar, nursing some murky drink that was probably going to cost a lot, I had time to think about what had happened to me.

I remember shooting Director Fury, and I'm well aware that he'll probably make me pay for that by sending me somewhere stupid. Everything else is a painful, blinding blur, like a migraine. I'm aware of conversations that I had with him, Loki, but I don't understand the context or the reasoning behind those conversations. They're really just snippets of time. Moments that make no sense, but meant all the difference.

"This is absolutely essential...I need this."

"This...this cannot fail. I must win, I cannot be defeated."

Those last words were not meant for me to hear, I'm sure. I can remember the scared desperation in his voice.

I slam my drink on the counter. No. This is just his way of winning. He's just getting in my head to mess with me. I'm already in your head. I've been there, watching as you killed all of your own men.

He's back in Asgard, in the Norse mythology where he belongs, but he's still in my head. I wonder if I can get Natasha to hit my head again? Or maybe if I get drunk enough, his voice will go away.

There's a mirror behind the bar, with some brand of beer etched into the glass, and I stare at my reflection. There's no trace of that awful blue Natasha told me about. It's all me in those eyes. I look like hell, there's no doubt about it. But it's my own hell, not some bastard god's inflicted hell.

It's just been a long day, a long few weeks, I tell myself, willing it to be true. My mind is just screwing with me because I need some sleep, and I need to stop drinking. I finish of whatever swill I've been downing and then throw some cash on the counter, and I stand up to leave.

One last glance in the mirror, and he's there staring back at me with those hellish eyes and that smirk, and I know that we haven't beaten him. He's still in my head, pulling the strings, just for kicks.

I want to say something, or run. I should probably just bolt the hell out of there.

"Oh, your mind is almost as troubled as mine."

No. Get the hell out of my head, you lost. We kicked your ass off this planet.

"Let's have a drink and talk about our troubled, heartbroken minds."

And I sit, and I drink.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two- The Shade

It's not all that bad, really.

At least that's what I tell myself as I lie awake in a somewhat uncomfortable bed. It's my bed but I don't think of it that way because it's so impersonal in the room. Someone else's room, because I am not myself today, and I might not be ever again.

That's what the pale, armored shade of a god is whispering in my head as he smirks at me from my mirror.

If you can ignore the armor, which you really can't, he looks so harmless. His eyes are calm, not the storm of fury and spite that I saw before. Maybe Norse mythological prison can do a crazy god good. Maybe Loki is on the road to recovery.

Or maybe I'm just going insane, and Loki's not here at all. He's just sitting in the back of my mind, taunting me.

I've been actively trying to figure it out since the bar earlier., and at this point, I'm not sure if I'll ever figure it out or not. I don't know how I could. I don't know how to talk to someone about this.

"Did you miss me?"

His voice is like tar, smooth, inky and weighing me down with dread under all of his false friendliness.

"No, I didn't miss you." I try to move as little as possible, and I try to speak quietly. I may be acting crazy, but I know I'm not. I didn't mean to get dragged into this, so I don't deserve to get dragged to a mental hospital either.

"And you don't think I'm really here, do you, Clint?"

In my mind. He's really in my mind. Or he's part of my mind, that voice that causes me to doubt myself, my aim, my choices, whispers, taunting me with the very thought that I am driving myself insane.

I was always so quick, so sure of myself because I had never once gone wrong, and all it took was one bit of magic that i didn't even believe in to turn me against myself. It took one person to make me go completely off the deep end. And yes, he is a bit stronger and more powerful than most others, but he's still one person. One person shouldn't have that kind of power over me, so I refuse to let him.

He smirks at me as I come to that realization, and waves and taunting goodbye before fading from the mirror.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi! Short chapter today, but the fun stuff is coming. Thanks for sticking with it! Review if you want, I love getting critiques and pointers. I'm still getting used to Fanfiction, so I haven't done this yet but:**

**Disclaimer! I own no part of Avengers. If I did, it would be a lot less amazing and a lot more bromance-y and depressing. So. Don't sue me.**

Chapter Three- Reflections

_"No. You took me for a purpose. What was it?"_

I wake with a jolt, and my eyes immediately focus on the mirror across the room. It's free from the god, which is more than I can say for myself, and it's reflecting only my startled face. But in my mind, I can see that smirking face, taunting me with thoughts of destroying the world and orders to kill people I care about. That reflection reminds me exactly why I stay away from people, reminds me that no matter what, I will end up hurting someone.

And then what Natasha said about Loki, what his plans for us were. He'd let me torture her to death and then he'd split my skull after I got a good look at what I'd done. She wasn't joking when she said he was a monster.

Tomorrow, I'll go to get help. I'll find a SHIELD therapist, because surely those must exist in a business as nutty as this one. I can only hope that this is just some mental thing, left over from all the stress of an impending alien war and mind control. There's probably some Freudian solution to my problems and it'll be fixed by next week.

After looking at the plain gray clock sitting on the nightstand, I realize that I'll be looking for a therapist later today. It's 3 a.m. but there's no more sleep for me tonight. Not with that monster in my head, sawing away at my last nerve.

If I'm not going to sleep, I might as well be productive, so I get up and pull that damned mirror off the wall and take it out of my room.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four- Troubled Minds

Odin did not know how to control me, that much was obvious from the moment that Thor and I had flashed in a whirl of uncontrollable power back into Asgard. Clearly, Odin's idea of subduing and punishing someone that had inflicted terror and horror upon thousands of people, even if they were only from Midgard, was the primitive idea of chaining and gagging. And maybe the chains were a thousand times stronger than anything else is Asgard, and maybe the gag was specially made by a billionaire genius and his team of matching scientists, but in the end, it was still primitive. Primitive, and incredibly simple for me to work around. I had at least expected some kind of mental blockade, stopping my powers from extending past the confines of my prison.

My prison. Ugly and dull gray, made of smooth metal, every bit the cliche, every inch what I expected from this short-lived punishment. When Odin slammed the door shut, eyes locked on mine as if to convey some sign of finality, I shaped my face to be passive, still, with maybe a hint of remorse. Just enough to make Thor, oafishly standing behind Odin, believe that I really was sorry. And once the doors were shut, my little prison was completely unwatched, lacking in Midgardian so-called 'security'.

And I was suddenly free to do what I wanted.

And at the moment, all I really wanted was a drink.

"Oh, your mind is almost as troubled as mine."


	5. Chapter 5

I don't own this! I own an Iron Man Dr. Pepper can but that's about it... Review if you want! I do so love encouragement :P

Chapter Five- Prisons

Poor Clint Barton, the little lost wonder assassin, sits across from me at the dark, dirty, stereotypical Midgardian bar. His eyes were glazed over from the alcohol, still brown, untouched by my magic so far.

"So have you missed me?" I ask as the bartender slides him another... whatever it is that he is drinking. His eyes, though they might clearly reflect his drunken state, are so much more alive than they ever were when I controlled his mind. And through those drunken eyes, I see his look of spite, as if he knows that I am trying to make him speak to a mirror in public. His eyes are sharp, but his mind is quicker, and because of that, I wait in silence for my answer.

Once the bartender has retreated to the opposite side of the, albeit very small, bar, no doubt frightened off by Clint's furious gaze, he turns back to the mirror, staring intently at the space that should be occupied by his reflection, no less furious than he was a moment ago.

"Yeah. I really miss being someone's puppet. I've been heartbroken." His voice is sharp, tense, barely controlled, but just sarcastic enough that I get his point. He is refusing to be entertaining for me.

He still doesn't seem to understand exactly what I have always been capable of. I would blame humanity for making him so stupid, but Thor was the first to be blind to my power.

"That was not the first time you were ever anyone's puppet, Clint." I lean forward, shaping my face to be kind, friendly. "You know this as well as I." I drop my voice conspiratorially.

He looks down into his glass for a split second, before leveling his gaze with mine. "Why are you here? How are you here?"

He wants answers. How professional. "It really was not very difficult, Agent Barton. The Asgardians can control my power no more than your kind. I am free to do as I wish during my imprisonment."

"Free to do as you wish? As long as you're trapped in a reflection, right? So you're not really as free as you think you are."

He is surprisingly clever when I am not controlling his mind, I will grant him that much. "There are mirrors and windows everywhere." I wave my hand carelessly, playing off my one weakness.

"Well, that's great. Just when you think you've beaten that overly cliched super villain, you find out he can't even be imprisoned. That's exactly what I wanted to hear on my Friday night." Clint stands up, pocketing the paper that he had so childishly slammed on the counter earlier. "If you're going to ruin my week, you have to pay for my drink."

When I said that there were mirrors and windows everywhere, I had half hoped that he would take it as a warning, just to prove that I could have some faith in humanity. And yet here I am, reflecting into his dour, prison-like rooms. He's not nearly as entertaining when he's asleep, but I cannot will myself back to my own prison so I will stay in his.

I can't help my aversion to prison, I was still raised as a prince, an Asgardian prince, and no kind of confinement will ever be suitable. "You are my son." I was-I am- the god of mischief, the god of lying, but this one lie had ripped my existence apart more than I could have ever foreseen. If I had plenty of time before, as I fell, as the Chitauri prepared me, to consider the ramifications of what had been done, I had unlimited time now. No matter what prison I could pick for myself, I could not escape from that conversation that turned me from a prince to a bastard, from an Asgardian to a monster, and suddenly made sense of all of the evil that I had always been happy about causing.

Over and over, it replayed in my mind, haunting me and strengthening my resolve to break free from these prisons for good. And I knew exactly who was going to help me to get free.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer time! I don't own the Avengers or any of these characters. Reviews make me a happy camper, and they make me want to write more chapters faster. Enjoy!**

Chapter Six-Distrust

"Agent Barton! What the hell is this that I'm hearing about you seeing the SHIELD psychologist?" Nick Fury is storming into the construction area that I've been stationed at. He looks around for a moment, scanning at eye level before looking up. "Barton, where the hell are you?"

I am exactly where I'm supposed to be, wherever Nick Fury needs me, and as of late, wherever he and fifty trained gunmen can keep an eye on me. I'm glad to be the reason that SHIELD had to employ more people than normal, but this can make for fairly uncomfortable conversation at lunch. "Up here, sir."

Fury looks up at me, still tall and imposing despite the three stories I have on him. "Get down here, Barton. No one's going to blow up the site today."

He's already started walking away before my feet even hit the ground, his black leather jacket flapping behind him like a superhero cape. "So. Why are you seeing the psychologist?"

"Can I speak frankly, sir?"

Fury signals for me to go ahead and say whatever is on my mind.

"I was possessed by a mythological god, I killed my own men, I almost crashed a multi-million dollar airship, a ship used by the people that I work for, and I almost killed one of the only people I trust. I think I'm allowed to talk to a shrink if I want to." I don't look at Fury the entire time I speak, because saying the things that I did out loud makes it seem so much worse.

"Be honest with me. Are you emotionally compromised? We can't have another incident like before. If you need time off to think and get yourself together, I'll give you time, but I don't want you around here if you're going to slip up again."

I'm sure he didn't mean it to sound as bad as it did, I'm sure he even meant it to be comforting, but all I heard was him placing the blame on me. All I heard was blame and distrust, and if I learned anything in the 45 minutes that I spent with my new psychologist, it's that I should be avoiding negative environments and distrust. Fury's eyes follow my every movement carefully, glancing warily at my eyes every few seconds to make sure they're not frosty blue. I understand why Banner went into hiding now. Dealing with these untrusting stares was going to take a toll pretty fast.

"I'm not going to slip up, sir. Loki's gone. He's not going to be a problem anymore."

_You're lying_, the voice in my mind that was not my own hissed to me. Taunting. Cruel. _You know I'm not gone. Are you lying because you _want_ me to be free?_

"Good. I'm glad to hear it."

"Sir."

"Go back up to your perch. I wasn't serious when I said that no one was going to try to blow this place up today. I don't trust these people." Fury motions for me to go away.

I'm not lying because I want Loki to be free. I'm stable and the situation is completely under my control. There's no point in taking time off just because Asgardian prisons aren't as secure as they should be. He can't possess my mind again anyway, not without his scepter, so I'll be doing SHIELD more harm than good if I leave them to Loki's taunting.

_Keep trying to convince me that I have no control over you, Clint. We both know that it's not true._

Get out of my head. You already lost the war, you don't have to stay in my head because you're a sore loser.

_You and I both know that it's not over yet. _

I refuse to acknowledge his last jab, because Fury is staring at me pointedly now. He's waiting for me to turn around and leave.

"Yes, sir."

I nod and leave, feeling his eyes still on me and I climb back to where I belong. I look back down at Fury, I see him talking to one of my guards quietly, handing him some paperwork. The guard looks up at me like he thinks I can't see his conspiratorial glance, and I glare down at him. I'm sick of being watched like I'm going to explode and take everyone down with me.

_Oh, I don't know, Clint. You've been pretty destructive towards your men so far._

My hand clenches around my bow, like I can shoot this ghost in my head.

_Look at them down there._

I am looking.

_He's going to kill you, Clint._


	7. Chapter 7

**(insert standard disclaimer here) Reviews make me happy and make me want to write more! I actually have a plan for this story, which I didn't yesterday. So that's good. I'll shut up now and let you read the story.**

Chapter Seven-Deadlines

"Sir, he's a good man. He's a good soldier too."

"I know he's a good man, goddammit. You think I don't know that? Out of everyone here, he's probably the most loyal, the most dedicated, and certainly the best shooter that I have. But he's compromised. You can see it, that he's not all the way back. Loki hasn't completely released his mind, and he probably never will," Nick Fury thunders at a circle of computer screens in a darkened room. The faces in the computer screens are weary and concerned.

"Just tell him to take some time off," suggests one of the faces.

"He won't take time off. He looked me dead in the eye and said he was fine, even though you know that he's not. He knows that I know, but he's lying, because that Norse god is telling him to lie." Fury had begun pacing.

"Why would he do that? What is his name-Loki. Loki already knows what your team is capable of, why would he risk it again?" Another face, with an English accent to compliment the steaming cup of tea sitting on top of the fifty page briefing that Fury had taken the time to write to explain his reasoning.

Living up to his last name, Fury's eye flashes as his brow furrows in anger at the council's blatant disregard as to the severity of the situation. "He would do it because he saw how close he came to tearing that team apart last time he was here. He's not stupid."

It's nice to hear that these stupid humans recognize that I am above them, that my intelligence is far greater than they could ever imagine. This is not the last time that Nick Fury would admit defeat to my power.

"But you can't be serious about going through with this, Fury."

"Less than a week ago, you all were fine with nuking all of Manhattan to stop an alien attack. I'm talking about one man. One man that is putting our entire operation at risk. You don't know what he's going to be forced to do, or say."

The council on the screens regards Fury's last words for a moment, deep in thought. A few flip through their briefings, and a few just sit still, upset thoughts written all over their faces.

"All right, Fury. We trust your judgement."

Oh, no. That would not do. Not at all. No matter how quick "Hawkeye" might be, he would not match the strength of the force that Fury would send. It was too early for him to be killed.

As Fury begins to nod, the one with the accent piped up, "Give him time, Fury."

"What?" Fury turns towards me and my hopefully short-lived puppet. I prod his dull, precise mind, pushing him to keep talking.

"Give him a week to recover. This is not a decision that has to be made in haste, and it shouldn't be made in haste. If he is still behaving like this, like it says here in this report, you have our permission and our support to go through with this."

"I will give him three days. A week is too long." Fury's voice is sharp. He wants to get it over with, he does not want to drag this out. But three days is not enough time.

"Three days is not enough time to recover. The difference between a week and three days is too great to ignore, not with this kind of thing on the line," my boring human argues.

Fury exhales sharply, and closes his eye. "A week."

"Thank you."

The screens go black.

As I open my eyes to my stark Asgardian prison, I see Thor standing before me, his hand clenched protectively over his beloved hammer.

"Hello, Thor," I say calmly.

"Brother."

"Once again, we are not brothers. I don't understand why that is such a hard concept to grasp," my voice is prissier than I would have liked it to be, but I am concentrating my mind on Clint Barton, where he sits in his favorite bar and drinks.

"Are you not sorry for what you have done?"

"Oh, yes, Thor. I am heartbroken, and utterly horrified at the damage that I have caused. I am glad that I have been brought back here to sit in a cell and think about what I have done. Can you not see my remorse?"

Thor steps towards me. "Apologize, Loki. Father will forgive you if you apologize, and your punishment will not be as severe."

"Have you ever known me to be imprisoned when I did not want to be? Thor, you should know this best of all."

"Not this time, brother," Thor says, warning in his voice.

"I see no reason to apologize for attempting to save the humans from themselves. They're tearing themselves apart because they think they understand what their world needs, and they don't understand it at all."

"And you do? You cannot believe these lies that you are telling."

I don't say anything else. Of course I don't believe what I am saying, but when have I ever believed my owns words when they have all been lies?

Thor turns to leave. "You have three days to apologize."

"Not a week?"

The door slams shut and I lean back against the side of my prison, half laughing. It seems that the Hawkeye and I both have deadlines before our undisclosed fates.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer-I don't own Avengers. For good reason, but it makes me sad anyway.**

**I don't ever answer reviews individually, but I just wanted to say that i love all of my reviews. You're awesome, and really encouraging, and clearly I listen to you, because the chapters have definitely gotten longer :p Enjoy!**

Chapter Eight-A Bargain

"If you're just going to drink water all night, you can do that somewhere else, buddy. We've got people here that actually want to treat this place like a bar."

I look up at the bartender and sigh. "Can I have a Coke, please," I say. He slams my newest non-alcoholic drink on the counter seconds later, an annoyed growl in the back of his throat. Once he leaves, I turn my eyes back to the mirror, waiting for some explanation. And although Thor's told us time and time again that Loki is the god of mischief and lying, I feel the eyes of a plain, nondescript SHIELD agent on me, where they've been fixed since I left the construction site.

_He's going to kill you, Clint._

I slam the glass of soda down a little harder than necessary. Why would he tell me that? If his whole strategy is to take us-SHIELD, the Avengers, whatever-down from the inside, wouldn't Nick Fury having me killed be the most helpful thing that could happen? Maybe Loki is controlling Fury's mind now, maybe he is going to have Fury have me killed, and he only told me so I could go crazy trying to understand. He's distracting me so I don't have a chance to fight back when they come to kill me.

In every scenario, I end up dead.

_Close, but no dice._

There's that damned voice again, with a hollow, pale, smirking face in the mirror to match it. _Go home, Clint._

The next time I open my eyes, I'm standing by the glass doors that lead to my balcony. I would be worried about my newfound ability to seemingly teleport from the bar to my apartment if it weren't for the god reflected in the doors.

Before I can say anything, Loki has already begun talking, forgoing his usual obtuse wording for straightforward directions. "I am going to make you a deal, and if you know what is best for you, you will take it without any questions."

"You're not going to trick me into doing something? That seems more your style," I snap, annoyed. Annoyed because just a few minutes without being watched, without being told what to do, would be the best reward I could ever get for helping drive away an alien invasion.

"I will not destroy my reputation for trickery by making one bargain," Loki scoffs.

"No, I think you destroyed it when you failed to take over the earth."

He slams his hand against the glass, trying to intimidate me. "Please remember that I do not have to make this bargain with you, and I will get the same end either way, Agent Barton." His voice has dropped to a hiss, far more terrifying than when he tries to force my hand through violent acts.

"What do you want? What's the bargain?" My voice is clipped in irritation. I always thought that when the superheroes beat the villains, they got a few days off, and the villain went back into his hole and pouted, but apparently that wasn't true. Apparently the heroes had to deal with sore losers messing with their minds until the villain got his way.

"You're going to go to back New Mexico, where you were that first day that you met my brother. You'll find Erik Selvig working in some tiny, nonexistent town, and you will give him a private mission from SHIELD, which he will work on in secret while you oversee his progress."

"Why do you need him? I'm not bringing anyone else into your little mess," I'm already turning away from the mirror and the lying god's bargain.

"As much as I would enjoy working through this with just you, you're a marksman. You're delightfully talented at shooting things, but that does me no good when I need a scientist," Loki is tense now. "And once this is through, we will never have anything to do with each other again, I swear on my own life."

"You're actually worried about something, aren't you? You're terrified of your own fate, because you couldn't handle being second best ever again, you had to run your own world instead. You couldn't-"

I wake up on the floor, head throbbing, hand cramped. I sit up carefully, groaning a bit, and look down to see a purple notebook that I didn't even know I owned and a pen grasped in my hands. I slowly open the notebook and I see that it's completely filled with carefully written words that mean nothing to me. Diagrams, formulas, equations, all written by me, all completely nonsensical.

_And in case you forgot when you blacked out and hit your head on the tile, this will not stop until you do what I want, Clint._

I hear the warning in his voice and I know it's true.

Erik Selvig isn't hard to find, no matter how strange my trip across the country is. Strange in the sense that I had to convince Fury that I had a reason to go, which took an entire seventeen hours, counting the twelve hour notice that all agents are required to put in, and then that I don't need my usual guard, although of course they follow me. Fury seems to forget that he's giving them the job that I used to have. Their tactics are juvenile to me, and overly predictable. It takes me less than five hours to turn them around and lose them somewhere over the Mexican border, which is a bit mean, but it will certainly keep SHIELD distracted for a while.

I find Selvig exactly where Loki says I will find him. He believes my lie about the notebook, handwritten to prevent computer tracking, without question, and he sets to work in his small but apparently well stocked lab. The facility is cleaner and less of a back-alley shady deal than the last time I supervised Selvig's progress. I am tense in this situation, drawing parallels between now and the last time in a panicked haste. My behavior goes completely unnoticed by Selvig, as he happily works on whatever it is he has been ordered by SHIELD to do. He would not have made a very good agent, judging by his surprising lack of observational skills.

Selvig works steadily for two more days, piecing together some meaningless silver shape. At random intervals, when the silence has become to much for him, he breaks out in chatter about some discovery, some interesting point to his creation, and I nod and say nothing, mind focused on the mission at hand, and on the god that ordered the mission. He's been oddly silent in my mind lately, which should allow me to sleep easier, but doesn't.

My third day with Selvig sees him triumphantly finishing his last minute masterpiece, smiling happily at the haste in which he has accomplished it. As he reviews his notes and my notes, he jerks up in surprise.

"Do you know what this is for, Clint? Do you know what this can do?" Selvig's voice is reverent as he runs his hands over the clunky box he has put together. It looks a bit like a projector, but probably worth about a million more dollars than any other projector. "This is amazing. I can't believe SHIELD actually figured it out. Jane will be so happy."

"Jane. Jane? Why will Jane be happy?"

Selvig's hands begin quickly flipping switches. "This is like a portal, a temporary bridge between our world and Asgard. Thor can come back! And I know they're bringing Thor back for the Avengers, but Jane will be happy that he's here."

Except it's not going to be Thor coming through that portal.

The light fills the room, blindingly white, and I raise my hand to cover my eyes. I know what is coming, and I know it's my fault, I realize as the dread fills me like a sickness. As the light begins to fade, I lower my hands and look at Selvig, who has kept his eyes shut.

"Thor!" he says happily, before being knocked into his metal work desk by a ghostly white hand.

"What the hell _happened_ to you?" I find myself asking before I can realize exactly who I'm asking. I am met with a bloody growl, because how could I honestly expect an answer?


	9. Chapter 9

**Hi! (Disclaimer- if I owned Marvel or the Avengers or Disney for the matter, I think I'd be too busy driving around in fast cars to write stories.) Clearly, I'm just on a roll with this story, because I've been updating a LOT more than I planned to. I took a Norse myth that I love in the most depressing way and adapted it to fit the story. So. I don't own that either. Reviews are lovely, so do that if you'd like. :) Enjoy!**

Chapter 9- Loose Lips Sink Ships

"It's been three days, brother," Thor's voice booms from the other side of my cell door.

I know that it's been three days. I've been counting, waiting, far more anxiously than I've been behaving. And now this day is here, and all of my planning and scheming has fallen through. I do not know that this day brings for me, but when my cell door slams open to reveal Odin, Thor and a handful of faceless servants, I can see in Thor's face that whatever my punishment is, it will be severe.

My two guards grab my arms and bind them as Odin steps forward, his face stony and severe as he looks at me. He waves his hand and Thor and one of the servants step forward, the servant holding a box, and Thor trying to hold his face as still as his father's.

"Loki Laufeyson, for your crimes against the people of Midgard, for your crimes against the people of Jotunheim-your own people- you will be punished," Odin says, his voice level and calm. "I, Odin Allfather, have decided that all of your problems, all of your crimes, have been caused by your lies, and therefore... I order that your ability to lie be taken from you."

I cock my head to the side and smirk. "Oh? Are you going to bring that Midgardian gag back?" If that was the only punishment I would be receiving, I do not understand how Thor could think apologizing would be worth it.

"Not exactly," Thor says. His voice is low, quiet, but I can hear it shaking. The servant hands Thor something from the box, and I narrow my eyes to get a better look. Thor twists the thick black thread between his fingers sadly before taking the glinting silver needle from the servant. "This is your last chance, brother. Apologize now."

My eyes are fixed on the needle, I can't tear my eyes from it as Thor threads it carefully. My mind is shorting out, not quite comprehending what is about to happen to me.

"Loki. Brother. Apologize. Please." Thor is begging now, much more collected and aware than I am.

I blink again, frozen in horror.

"Do it, Thor. He is not remorseful, and he must be punished," Odin hisses.

"Father, please. Please..." But Thor's pleas mean nothing, Odin shakes his head and turns away.

"I am disappointed in you, Loki. This was not what I raised you to become."

And this was not what I was raised to become. A fallen prince, ordered to silence by the man that said he was his father, silenced by the man raised as his brother.

The Chitauri promised me pain, promised me worse than any pain that I could imagine. But from the moment that the needle first pierced my lip, I knew that they could not inflict this upon anyone.

I kept my face as rigid as possible to minimize the pain, but Thor's face above mine, crumpled and heartbroken, only made the pain worse. Each stitch was a memory, from childhood to Thor's coronation when I ruined it all, a flash of our shared laughter, the things that brought us joy, the things we fell apart over. Each memory stitched into me in a jagged, bloody line for all to see. And as I remembered our past, I saw where we fell away, I see now that we could have never been real brothers.

I hiss in pain, trying my best to keep my lips together, when something hot and stinging falls onto my fresh wounds. Thor does not recognize that we were never meant to be brothers, never meant to be equals, destined instead to be rivals for as long as we both lived. The tears he sheds now make me wonder if this is worse punishment for him, but I can't say anything poisonous now to haunt him forever.

The stitches tug violently as Thor knots it. He takes a towel from a servant and goes to wipe them blood from my mouth, chin, neck, but I jerk away. He steps back, and wipes his hands instead, before throwing the bloodstained towel on the floor and turning to Odin.

"It is done, father," he spits. "I did as you requested." And he storms out of my cell without looking back.

Odin nods. "He has been silenced. His lies will not poison us anymore."

Odin and the servants leave my cell, and the guards follow, locking the door carefully as they do so.

Now I am alone, in my cold cell, eyes blinking back tears furiously as I shakily reach up to feel the damage that has been caused. The thread is so thick, the stitches so uncoordinated and violent, that my lips feel like they belong to someone, something else, some unnamed monster. But I guess I am an unnamed monster now, silenced and lock in a cell to be forever forgotten.

_It's finished. Selvig actually finished it._

I sit up quickly, listening to the thoughts of my hawkeyed ally.

_...A temporary portal to another world. So that's what those look like._

And then my room is filled with blinding light and I step into the center of it, closing my eyes to the warmth and freedom that the light provides. I hear the guards struggling to open the door, yelling frantically, but it's too late. I am through, standing in another laboratory, as the light fades and the portal disappears.

"Thor!" a voice yells, the familiar voice of one Erik Selvig. I do not care to hear my adopted brother's name at this moment, and I feel that I cannot be to blame when my hand flies out and knocks him unconscious.

"What the hell _happened_ to you?" Clint Barton's voice demands frantically.

I release an agonized growl at him, feeling blood trickle from my wounds down my chin. I start to shake, and before I realize what is happening, I am blacking out, knees collapsing and sending me towards the floor.


	10. Chapter 10

**hey guys! Yay for new chapters. I don't own Avengers blah blah don't sue me blah. I'm sleepy, and I probably edited this horrendously but yeah. Review, enjoy. Love you all! Thanks for sticking with it! Also. I don't even really understand what's going on with the chapter title. It's supposed to be punny. it's probably not. anyway..**

**Enjoy!**

Chapter 10-Back in Blood

I remember that the first time I saw Loki, he was pale, unnecessarily pale, and dead looking, standing in the now destroyed SHIELD science lab. If my memory serves me right, although there's a good chance that it doesn't, the god is even paler this time. His face is stark white and drawn, eyes clenched shut against the pain. The only color on his face comes from the fresh stitches through his mouth, which trickle more blood each time he breathes.

We're sitting in some orange and blue themed hotel room, with fake wood panel walls, and a TV with antennas. Broken antennas, but it's the thought that counts. Loki is laying frozen stiff on one of the beds, and I'd think he was dead if it weren't for the fresh blood that I am constantly staunching.

After he'd arrived in Selvig's lab and promptly collapsed into my arms, I leaned him against a wall and then I went to make sure Selvig was still unconscious. Once I saw that he was, I began to clean up his lab, taking the projector device that he had built, as well as our notes, to my rental car. As soon as I was sure that his lab looked exactly as it had before, I took-or dragged-the Norse god to my car and drove away without looking back. It was like I was on autopilot, I realize now as I sit in the hotel room. I was completely acting off of my years of training to clean up the mess and make it like I was never there. And maybe I hadn't been there to kill anyone and then clean it up, but bringing back Loki certainly made it feel like a deadly mission in the worst way possible.

Now, I would wait until he woke up before I decided what to do. I would have started pulling out the stitches, but that seemed a little harsh. And I didn't know if they were important or not. Maybe the stitches were holding his teeth in or something.

He needed to wake up soon. I didn't particularly want him to wake up, because him waking up meant I had to deal with his lies and his bullshit, but he needed to wake up because I was going to need to be back at SHIELD in six hours.

I knew that I would be called in for a meeting with Nick Fury the second that I got there. I knew that he would want to know why I felt the need to almost cross the Mexican border before turning around. As I'm trying to think of a good excuse, something that is more up Natasha's alley than mine, my phone that I forgot I'd packed rang shrilly.

Speak of the devil, and she will call.

"Clint, where the hell are you?" Natasha's voice snaps.

"Oh, hey, Nat. I could ask you the same thing, since you never seem to tell anyone where you're going. Honestly, you have no right to try to keep tabs on everyone if you're not going to tell anyone where you are. I'm worried sick over here," I ramble. "I'm at my apartment, watching the game."

"You don't 'watch games' Clint. And you're not at your apartment."

"Oh?"

"I'm standing in your apartment." Oh. "You and your suitcases are nowhere to be found. So I'll ask again. Where the hell are you, Clint?"

"I was just taking a break, Natasha. I went to visit Erik Selvig in New Mexico." No point in lying about that, she'd figure it out anyway. "He understand what I've been going through, Nat. I had to talk to someone that would get it. It can't just get punched out of your mind. Not something like this."

Silence on the other end. What I said was mean, more unkind than she could deserve, but it would hurt her feelings and she would leave the whole situation alone. Better yet, she wouldn't even talk about it again, and maybe I would just be allowed to forget this.

"I'm sorry, Clint." And then my phone flashes to signal that the call has ended.

I throw the phone on top of the other bed and sigh. Can we please just get this over with? Waiting to see whatever he has in store might actually be worse than enduring his plans.

He sits up, slowly, painfully, and looks at me expectantly. He's forgotten that his mouth it sewn shut when he tries to speak, reopening any wound that might have started to heal. His hand flies to hover over his lips, and he stares back at me, eyes wide and terrified.

"I don't know how that happened," I disclaim before he can kill me. "You came through the portal this way."

_I know. I remember now._

"Can you fix it?" What am I saying? Why would I want him to fix this? Him not speaking, not poisoning the world with his lies, is a good thing.

He hesitantly touches the thread, and then he jerks back in shock.

_I can't fix it. I can't even touch it._

"Well, this must be exactly how you planned this going," I snap, turning from him and pulling the rental car keys out of my bag. "We're leaving. We can figure out what the hell to do with you later."


	11. Chapter 11

**Hello, lovelies! *Insert disclaimer here* Enjoy!**

Chapter Eleven-The Worst That They Can Do

"Clearly your people don't understand how to keep prisoners in actual prison. Thor had his chance at punishing you. I'm going to take you into SHIELD custody now," I say, forcing Loki to stand so that I can cuff his hands. Like a Boy Scout, I came prepared for anything, even the possibility of actually being able to overpower the god.

_I think they did their fair share of punishing._ Loki's bright, clear eyes bore into mine as his blood drips from his mouth. I scoff at his response. His punishment does not make all of his crimes against my home acceptable or forgivable.

_You will understand, Clint._

A solid, shining prison, bound hands, two hulking guards. The door slams open and Thor and a strange old man with a golden eyepatch walk through.

_"I order that your ability to lie be taken from you."_

Silenced. An eternity of silence will be my fate. This crushing realization pounds in my ears as Thor steps closer.

_"Do it, Thor. He is not remorseful."_

And Thor smirks down at me and the needle viciously stabs into my lips, over and over as the thread pulls tighter, silencing me a little bit more with each tug.

The years and years spent by Thor's side as his friend, advisor, brother, have meant less to him than they ever did to me. To Loki, that is. The lies of a trickster god were nothing compared to the lies of a brother.

Once it was done and knotted, the cell was empty, silent except for the drops of blood going to the floor and spilling into one pool of red. A flash, and I am here, subject to my own cruelty and unkindness.

When I open my eyes again, I am standing where I should be, in my body, across from Loki, who looks at me with sad eyes.

_Do you really think they can do any worse to me? The worst that they can do is nothing compared to being silenced like that, with so much pain, pain that will never go away, by someone that was raised as my brother. They can do nothing to me now that would ever be worse._

I know what he's trying to do. It won't work, I tell myself. And even though I have raised my hand to loosen his cuffs-to do what, I don't know-I don't free him. "Being brutally punished in one world does not atone for your crimes against another world."

_You keep preaching SHIELD's dogma like a good little minion. You don't even know what you're fighting for, Clint. You cannot seriously still be following them blindly, not when you have seen with your own eyes the agents that follow your every move. They don't trust you. None of them do. Turning me over to them will do nothing for you. It will only prove to them that I am still in control of your mind. It will only prove that they have a reason to want to kill you._

"Get the hell out of my head. I can't think." I hate admitting that he's right, but in this situation, he is. Despite the fact that he possessed my mind, forced me to kill my own agents, forced SHIELD to not trust me, in this one instance, I believe him.

_Before turning me over to the people that would be happy to see us both dead and gone, please remember that I can still get what I want done without you're help. Any SHIELD agent will do._

In an instant, my bow is in my hands, an arrow pointed directly at his eye. He freezes.

"Don't for even one second think that you are in control of this situation, Loki. You're not. You have no voice, no power, no magic, that can save you from what will happen if you set one toe out of line."

He stares at me in silence, eyes narrowed, judging me.

_You're so impressively loyal, Clint._

"And you're such an impressive liar," I reply.

_We're going to get along famously._

* * *

Erik Selvig wakes up on the floor to a pounding head and a ringing phone. He can't remember anything except a blinding flash. He sits up slowly, pulling himself to standing with the wall, and makes his way over to where his cell phone sits.

"Hello?"

"Dr. Selvig. It's Nick Fury. Would you care to explain why you blacked out an entire town and used their power source up without warning?"


	12. Chapter 12

**Hello! Another chapter! What. So many updates? I'm feeling really nice today. :p. And also because I probably won't update at all tomorrow so.. sorry... Love you all! Your reviews back me laugh because you're all so awesome. Enjoy!**

**I don't own Avengers. I wish I did. but I don't.**

Chapter Twelve-Target

Erik Selvig looks Nick Fury right in the eye and tells him that he doesn't know what happened that day in New Mexico. Nick Fury believes him, he sees the truth in Selvig's eyes. As soon as Selvig admits that he knows something happened, but he's not sure what, Fury releases him with orders to at least try to remember what had happened.

"Stevens!" Fury barks. "Call off the men tailing Barton, it's not like they're doing any good anyway. Call Agent Romanoff instead. Same mission, just... Don't tell her what the target is until she gets there."

"Are you sure, sir?"

"No one else is going to be able to do it, Stevens. I don't trust anyone else with this mission," Fury says flatly.

"I don't trust her with it," Stevens says quietly once he is out of earshot.

* * *

_"Slowly, intimately, in every way that he knows you fear."_

Natasha's eyes flash as she jams her gun into the holster strapped to her leg. Everyone else in the team wanted time off, but she relishes the thought of going back into the field and possibly killing someone. She is still tense, even more so after her last conversation with Clint.

_"And then I'll split his skull."_

She is out the door, up on the rooftop before even realizing it. She climbs in the helicopter that will take her to her next mission, and she looks at the suit-clad SHIELD agent across from her with her briefing, reminding her all too much of Agent Coulson.

"Well?" she says expectantly. "Aren't you going to start?" She gestures at the folder in his hands, but he shakes his head.

"I give this to you once we get there," he says mechanically, and for the rest of the ride, he remains stoically silent.

As they fly, Natasha thinks back to her phone call with Clint, the one where he first lied to her, and then told her some bizarre, probably bullshit story about needing a break. "He understands what I've been going through, Nat. I had to talk to someone that would get it. It can't just get punched out of your mind. Not something like this."

It actually hurts her in ways that most things could not, to think that Clint couldn't trust her, to think that Clint didn't believe her when she said she knew what it was like. He had sounded so accusingly unkind, too, in the way that he said it, that it still makes her shake a little.

In all of her life, she has never trusted anyone the way that she trusts Clint, but now, after Loki possessed his mind, she can't be sure that Clint is all the way back. Natasha knows that practically everyone at SHIELD shares that sentiment, considering the wary, sometimes hostile looks he had been receiving after. Hero or not, he had still spent enough time trying to take down SHIELD, and the entire world with it, to earn those looks.

Her thoughts revolve around Clint's erratic behavior of late until the helicopter lands in a swirl of dusty sand in seemingly the middle of nowhere. Natasha unstraps herself and gets out, taking the folder from the agent.

"The car will take you to your destination, Agent Romanoff. Your instructions are in here. Good luck."

She nods before getting in the black car and opening the folder as the car starts.

The folder consists of what these things always consist of; bland instructions that detail how to follow targets and keep SHIELD informed of their doings until the time that she is told to carry out the mission, which is always ultimately to kill the target. She will have three days to follow the target, observing and reporting his/her behavior unless Fury tells her otherwise. By the fourth day, the target will be dead and she will be back at headquarters. On the last page, as always, is the page devoted solely to the target, name, height, age, gender, hair color, language. Everything. She flips to it.

Natasha doesn't do anything dramatic in response to the target's name. Her eyes go a little wider, her mouth opens a bit, but that's it. The folder isn't dropped to the floor, she doesn't scream. But she doesn't keep reading about the target, because she already knows every detail.

Target: Clint Barton.


	13. Chapter 13

**Hello, darlings! Sorry I didn't update for a couple of days. I wrote you a longer chapter to make up for it. Y'all are great for sticking with this story.**

**I don't own Avengers. Blah blah blah. Rip my heart out every time I update, why don't you, copyright laws?**

Chapter Thirteen-Five Minute Therapy Sessions

Loki sits stiffly in the front seat of my beige rental car. His eyes are firmly locked on the dashboard, and I'm fairly certain that he hasn't blinked since the car started moving. I haven't decided whether his stillness comes from unfamiliarity with cars going 90 miles per hour, or from the pain of the coarse thread running through his skin. Either way, I welcome the silence in my mind that allows me to concentrate on driving.

_Where are we going, Clint?_

Damn. Spoke too soon.

"We're going in the general direction of the SHIELD headquarters. We can't take a direct route, though, just in case people are looking for me for some reason," I answer.

_They are looking for you, Clint. They have been for days._

Loki finally quits his staring contest with the dashboard and looks at me sharply. _Why don't you believe me when I tell you this? What good do you think it does me to see you dead at this point?_

"Oh, probably because you're the god of lying. I wonder if that would have anything to do with my distrust. And you've mentioned more than once how easy it would be to replace me."

_Replacing you would mean taking control of their mind. I don't have to do that with you. You're helping me with your own free will._

"Not of my own free will," I snap, slamming on the brakes. The car skids to a stop, kicking up dusty sand. "I am not here because I like you and because I want to see your psychotic world domination plans succeed. I am here to get you back to SHIELD and to get you out of my head for good. That is all."

Loki looks at me sympathetically, although we both know that I can see the taunting smirk dancing behind his eyes. _You trust them so thoroughly that you're willing to take me to them and let them justify killing you? You're unstable to them, Clint. You terrify them, because they know how well trained you are, and they know that you know enough about SHIELD to cause trouble for them. But you don't terrify them enough to make them think that they can't control you, can't stop you permanently if they need to. They know that they have the power to kill you. They have the power to kill all of their agents. Any of the people that they have ever come in contact with, they have a way to kill them._

"You're lying. No one puts that much thought into how to kill someone, Loki. Not even you would do that," I brush off his words.

_Are you so naive, Clint? They know what they're doing. You might not have seen that glass cage that I was held in by SHIELD, but you have to realize how much time and effort would go in to something like that. They know what to do with every single one of you. Especially your so called 'Avengers.' And you've scared them. They don't trust you anymore._

"I scared them? I didn't do anything! This is all your fault. If you didn't have to have a little revenge-filled massacre on mankind because you have daddy issues, my life would be totally normal." I slam my hands on the steering wheel. "You're lucky that I haven't done worse to you than just taking you back to SHIELD. I'd love to make you suffer like you've made me suffer, but that's not what I'm supposed to do, so I won't." I exhale sharply, closing my eyes against his jagged, bloody smirk. "And now I've sunk to your level. Great."

_If 'my level' is you saying what you really think, I do not understand why I am the villain in this situation._

"That's not how I used to think. It was never personal. It's never supposed to be personal."

_It seems that I have a lot to learn about being a murderer._

I don't reply, I just turn the car back on and pretend that his last words aren't on repeat in my mind. I am a murderer. Who am I to lecture Loki on morality, to punish him for his faults, when in the end, I am no better than he is?

I drive silently for hours, making up my own obscure route to the SHIELD headquarters through little towns and neighborhoods. Eventually, the gas light comes on, flashing orange to get my attention, and I pull into a run down gas station on the outskirts of a town that seems to be permanently frozen in the seventies.

I turn off the car. "Stay here," I say before getting out. I regard the rusty white gas pump for seconds before turning and going into the building, deciding that credit cards were probably not the kind of trail that I should be leaving for SHIELD to find.

The interior is dirty, highlighted by the fluorescent lights that flicker in the ceiling. It smells of smoke and burned hot dogs, and I get the feeling that everything in the store is expired except the water.

"Can I get forty dollars of gas?" I say, handing him my cash.

_"Which_ pump are you at?" the faded employee asks dully.

"Um." I raise my eyebrows and look out the glass-fronted building to look at the three unnumbered pumps available, and the one car in the vicinity. "The pump with the car parked next to it?"

I buy the gas and two bottles of water, and then I pull away from the gas station.

_I really don't understand how anyone could find the idea of breaking the will of humans and ruling them to be so repulsive. The punishment outweighs the crime, judging by that encounter._

"Okay, well that was just a really unflattering example of what humanity can produce," I defend. "He's one in a million, and I don't use that phrase in the nice sense."

_You would be surprised at how many people are just as intelligent as he._

"Believe me. I would not be surprised."

Loki raises his eyebrow and shakes his head. _I just do not understand this sentimentality you all feel._

"That's because you don't have a home. You have no attachment to anything." I turn the sedan on to another back road as I speak. "Thor told us your story or whatever you call it. Your history. You were raised in one realm, but you're from another, a realm that happens to be considered an enemy. You were raised to hate your own kind, and you can't shake that idea. But now you hate the people that you thought were your kind because they lied to you for so long."

_And why do I hate your world? Why do I hate Midgard?_

"I'm going to assume that you hate this world because you're insane," I say, my five minutes of being a therapist now out of my system.

_I would laugh, but that would tear my face in half. You're wrong though. I hate your world because it's just one more place that my brother found attachment where I could not. Like you said, I was raised to think that the world that I belong to is the enemy, so no matter what, I will never find myself attached to that world. I do not think I will ever feel the same about Asgard, so that's another world that I won't be connected to._

"Maybe if you didn't kill people here, we'd be okay with you getting attached," I say. "Or are you too far above us for that?"

_This world does not matter anymore._

"Then why the hell are you here?"

_Anything is better than that Asgardian prison, Clint. Even Midgard._

"You're lying. I think you're here for a reason." And I think that this conversation was designed and scripted by Loki just to get me to feel a little more sorry for him.

Loki just looks at me, mocking me. He says nothing else as we drive on. The road that we're on, some winding, picturesque forest road, is now only lit by the headlights, the sun having gone down long ago, and streetlights being irrelevant this far into the middle of nowhere.

And then there are headlights behind us, blinding me when I look in the rearview mirror.

Loki turns around in his seat to look at the car. He narrows his eyes and then turns back to face the front.

_Can't you go any faster?_

"Why? Who is it?"

He doesn't say anything, but a face, somehow familiar, shadowed by a hat and covered from the nose down by a black scarf, flashes in my mind. _She has been following us since we left our room at that decrepit complex in New Mexico._

"And you didn't say anything?"

_It did not seem urgent until now. But now that she's so close, and we're out here alone. Go faster. We are not far from civilization, where she cannot make a scene._

I realize why that face seems so familiar. "Natasha. That's Natasha behind us."

I slam on the brakes, again. By the time this car gets returned to the rental service, the brakes will be completely worn away.

_What are you doing? Don't _stop_. Are you insane?_

My car has already come to a stop, and I'm opening the door to get out as Natasha's black car screeches to a halt. She's out in the blink of an eye, and I take in her black catsuit in surprise. Her gun is pointed directly between my eyes, and as my fingers twitch for my bow, I remember that it's in the car, uselessly sitting next to the driver's seat.

"Nat? What the hell is going on?" I say, trying to sound calm.

"Is he in the car with you?" she says loudly, to compensate for the distance between us.

"Loki? Yes. I'm taking him back to headquarters."

"Why didn't you call it in? Why are you going this back way?" Her questions are accusing, damning.

"Because I'm going to get killed either way, Nat. I thought that I would at least try to get him locked up first," I say quietly, finally realizing that what I'm saying is true. I've known all along that I'm probably not getting out of this situation alive, by no fault of my own. Wrong time, wrong place. Being possessed by Loki is the worst thing that could have ever happened to me.

"And you didn't think that anyone else in SHIELD could control him enough to bring him in?" It's not a question. It's the final nail in the coffin that is my impromptu trial, a trial that has sentenced me to death.

"Natasha, please."

"It's just a little more red," I hear her say to herself. She cocks her gun.

"Natasha..."

"I'm sorry, Clint. This isn't how it's supposed to be."


	14. Chapter 14

**Two chapters within such a short time? I must love you guys a lot! Read. Enjoy. Review. **

**I don't own Avengers. Weirdly, I didn't acquire the rights in the last six hours... :P**

Chapter 14-Shots in the Dark

"I'm sorry, Clint. This isn't how it's supposed to be."

I don't know what made me stop. I don't know why I froze, lifted my hands in surrender, and closed my eyes in defeat. I had every chance in the world to fight back and at least try to save my own skin. But for what? I'd be dead sooner or later.

So here I stand, before the one person that I ever really trusted, with a gun trained on my forehead. Her face is calm, professional, emotionless, but her eyes are a raging storm. Natasha doesn't want to shoot me, but she has to. She's done it countless times, what is one more kill for her? And I see it in her eyes, that it's time. Time for me to die, time for her to break her own heart.

But it never comes.

There is only a gentle hiss in the air, no crack of a gunshot, no instant peace on impact, only a soft gasp and a thud. And then the crack and the pain, but not life-ending, not even life-threatening. Just a little blood, a bullet buried in my arm instead of my skull.

I open my eyes and see Natasha on her knees in the road, an arrow buried in the skin above her knee. She is looking at me in hurt shock, like she wasn't the one that shot me a minute ago, like I betrayed her. I turn around to see where the arrow came from and see Loki standing beside the car, holding my bow.

_Did you really think that I would let her kill you, Clint?_

I just look at him for a moment before saying, "I trust you less than I trust the woman with the gun."

Natasha looks between us. "So Fury was right. You are still being possessed by Loki." But then her eyes become glazed and frozen, and Loki is staring intently at her. I wait in silence for several minutes. When she shakes free, she gasps and looks up at me through watery eyes. At first, I think the tears are from the pain, but when she speaks, I'm not so sure. "Clint... I'm so sorry. You've been suffering so much and... And I'm sorry." She drops her gun and looks at me pleadingly. "Clint. Come home. Please, I can help you."

I don't look back at her. I leave her there, to spite her, to punish her, because I am sure that she will survive, I don't know which. But I get back in the car and drive away, leaving her silhouetted against the blinding headlights of her SHIELD car.

_You're injured, Clint._

"Shut up. I know. We can stop and fix it later."

I drive for another hour, until the pain is too much. I pull into a parking lot and turn off the engine. Loki wrinkles his nose at the building that we're parked in front of, but he knows better than to say anything.

_Let me see your arm,_ Loki orders, reaching his hands out to grab my elbow and pull it towards the light coming from the flickering light of the hotel sign. He pulls the bullet out as I clench my teeth. _I should have done this an hour ago._

"But it'll be fine, right?" I panic.

_Yes_. He does something to it, something magic, before releasing my arm. _Now if only I could do that for myself._ He has gone once again from murderous monster to heartbroken, lonely, pained child, looking at me helplessly through his vicious, permanent gag.

I don't even shake my head at him anymore. I can't muster enough disgust to justify the action after a night like this. For the time being, we're on the same side. It's temporary, and we both know it, but the alliance is there, and it's genuine this time.

When we're sitting-well, he's sitting, I've collapsed on to an already collapsing bed- in our run down hotel room, I ask him how much it hurts.

_It's torture, Clint. Every second of every minute in agonizing, miserable pain. Pain that I can't even express without causing myself more pain. I cannot even breathe without my wounds reopening and bleeding. There is one thing that I know, one thing that I absolutely trust myself with, and I can't ever do it again. Do you know how hard that is? To know that you can never do what you know best again? To know that you will never eat or drink again? To know that you will slowly, much slower than it would be for a human, but inevitably waste away? My own family, the only people that might ever love me, did this with the knowledge that I could never even take away my punishment._

I sit up slowly. "You can't touch the stitches, can you?" Loki shakes his head. I stand up and stand in front of him. "Can I?" I don't wait for his permission, I reach out and touch the rough black thread with one finger. He winces, but that's it. There's no shock, nothing stopping me. I pull a knife from my pocket, but before I can snap it open, I freeze.

_You don't trust me._

"You know I don't. I don't even know what I'm thinking." I put the knife back and step away from his still frame. He nods slowly before looking away.

_Go to sleep, Clint. I won't do anything destructive tonight._

And for some reason, I completely trust him.


	15. Chapter 15

**Hi darlings! Whoa. What? Last chapter? Yeah.. I've decided to end it here and make a sequel, because there's all kinds of stuff that I want to happen, but I'm taking a page from Hollywood's book and making it in two parts :P. I'm also doing this because I need a short break from writing so I can get some other stuff done and out of the way. And because I want to go into the sequel with a game plan. Chapter one of the sequel should be up in a couple weeks, and I'm going to post a teaser for it here on this story in a day or two. I love you all! Thank you for reading!**

Chapter 15-Death Sentences

"Director Fury, Erik Selvig is here to see you," a faceless SHIELD employee says.

Nick Fury does not have time for scientists, not today, not when one of his best agents has seemingly disappeared off the grid while in pursuit of another one of his best agents. "Not now."

"He says it's urgent, sir."

Selvig bursts in just as Fury is giving the okay for him to be let in. "He's back," he gasps out, eyes wide and horrified.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Selvig?" Fury demands, short temper barely contained in his clipped words.

"That disturbance in New Mexico? It was him. He's back." Selvig looks up at Fury, ashamed. "And I built the device that brought him back. I made something to stop him though. You can still stop him."

"WHO?"

"_Loki_."

* * *

I wake up with Natasha's horrified cries as I left her in the road still ringing in my ears. "Natasha. Natasha, I'm sorry," I whisper blindly. What had I done? Left her in the middle of a dark forest road, injured, to die?

_She's not going to die, Clint._

"You don't know that," I snap.

He soundlessly sighs before closing his eyes. _She's not dead,_ he says in my mind after he opens his eyes again. _In fact, you will see that for yourself if we stay here much longer_. Loki's eyes glance out of the window to the car.

Once again, he tells the truth, something I figure out much sooner than I would have hoped. Maybe he kept it from me for some reason, or maybe he still underestimates the speed of vehicles but we've been on the road for maybe fifteen minutes before I see the roadblock ahead of me. Before I can turn around and go the other way, I glance in the rearview mirror and see six black cars tailing me in the distance. The loud hum of a helicopter above us and then I realize that there's no getting out of this.

I slam on the brakes and turn the car off. Loki hands me my bow, and I stop and stare at him. "No, Loki. We're not doing this. I'm not doing this."

_You are not just going out there and surrendering. If they're going to kill you, you might as well go out fighting. I have looked into their minds. We are not intended to make it past this point of the road in anything but a body bag._

I look out of the windshield at the roadblock, and I see Nick Fury standing there, surrounded by heavily armed SHIELD agents. His arms are crossed and there is nothing kind about his face. Granted, there hardly ever is, but I can see in his eye that he means death and that Loki's words are true.

Loki presses the bow into my hands and I accept it. "Fine."

I get out of the car, bow in one hand, my other hand pulling my quiver across my back. As I slam the car door shut, Fury walks towards me, followed by none other than Natasha Romanoff. She looks sadly at me, but I can see her torn uniform, the halfhearted attempt to bandage her wound, and I know that there is no mercy for me today.

"Agent Barton." Fury stops a few feet from me. "We are taking the criminal Loki into custody where he will be imprisoned at SHIELD headquarters until a suitable punishment for his war crimes can be enacted. And we are taking you into custody for your violent actions against a SHIELD agent while being possessed by Loki. You will be released once Loki is removed from this earth."

_They're going to kill me, Clint._ I look at him in surprise, and through his bloody wounds, I see that he is telling the truth. _And they can. They know it, too._

I will be free once he is dead, I realize. Free from SHIELD's prison, and free from his hold on my mind. I will be able to trust myself again, and so will everyone that I work with. Nothing but good can come of him being dead. Our world will be a little bit safer. His world, which he says he does not belong to but I know that is not true, will be safe from whatever revenge he would be planning. I could rest easy again, I try to convince myself. After the destruction that he caused, he would only deserve death.

"Natasha," Fury says.

She pulls her gun out and glares at Loki theateningly. It seems useless, what can her gun do to Loki now if it couldn't stop him before? Then I notice that it is not her gun at all, but something newer, bulkier, shinier.

"Nat, what are you doing?" I ask, not sure why I'm asking at all.

She doesn't say anything, doesn't even take her eyes off of her target. "Director Fury?"

He is looking at the phone in his hands. "And would you look at that. A suitable punishment has been found. Natasha, you know what to do."

Loki looks at me furiously as Natasha aims her gun.

_You are not going down without a fight, Clint._

And I don't.

* * *

This is not the first time that I have stood before Clint as he lies unconscious, cuffed to a hospital gurney. I can only hope that it is the last time. We're back at the SHIELD headquarters, a few men short, and a lot more quarts of blood short. The last few weeks have been destructive for SHIELD and I can tell that it's wearing on Fury. Taking one of his best men into custody was probably the icing on the metaphorical cake though, I think.

Looking down at Clint's unmoving form breaks my heart. I did that to him. Again. The bullet that I left in his arm is nothing compared to the damage that I inflicted this time. After this, with Loki still alive for the time being, probably in worse shape than Clint, I don't think Clint will ever trust me again. And even as I try to blame it on him, tell myself that he is the one that caused all this damage and went to help Loki in the first place, I know that I'm the one that shot him, not the other way around. It would have been different if any other agent shot him.

He is starting to wake up, and coward that I am, I try to leave before he can open his eyes and see me.

"Hi, Natasha."

Too late.

I turn to face him. "Clint. I'm sorry, I really am."

He shrugs, and then looks down at the cuffs on his wrists. "So they still don't trust me?"

"It's still dangerous." I sit back down. "Do you remember what happened?"

"You shot me again," he says frankly. I start to defend myself but he interrupts. "I know why. I get it."

"Clint, why were you helping him?"

"Because I was going to end up helping him either way, I thought I should at least have control over the situation. And I needed to get away from SHIELD and the constant eyes on me. Once I left here, I knew that it was over anyway. SHIELD was going to try and take me out anyway. I'm worth more to them dead than alive now, aren't I?"

"Not if we can kill Loki. If he's dead, you're back to normal. It will be like none of this happened," I say confidently.

He shakes his head at me. "No, Tasha. We-you- can't kill him. He's a god."

"He can be killed. Thor had his chance and he failed. He's in our custody now, and he won't be escaping. He has to be punished."

I stand up again and leave, refusing to listen to Clint's brainwashed talk any longer.

Walking through SHIELD's headquarters brings a much needed sense of normalcy back to my life. The quiet buzz of workers, agents, engineers, weapons designers, operatives, hums in my ears as I walk down the hallways. It's all familiar, even the more frantic movements caused by the presence of a weapon of mass destruction in the form of a man.

Soon, that weapon of mass destruction would be gone and Clint would be back, fighting on my side. I could wait as long as it took to get Loki's death sentence re-okayed by the council.

After the fight, impressively drawn out considering that it was two men against fifty, the council revoked their permission to kill Loki. Keep him alive, they said. Maybe he could be useful. I'm not sure what they think he could be useful for, but I could wait. Loki was safely imprisoned with no hope of escape.

* * *

After Natasha leaves, I close my eyes again, still weak from the fight. I had lasted longer than I expected to, despite their best efforts. After Loki had told me not to go down without a fight, I had pulled an arrow from my quiver and aimed it directly at Natasha, and it began. I collapsed once I had loosed all of my arrows, riddled full of bullets, losing blood fast. The last thing that I saw before blacking out was Natasha leveling her new gun at Loki's heart and firing.

It doesn't seem likely that a few wounds inflicted by a hastily put together weapon would be enough to kill Loki, and considering the cuffs that hold me to the hospital bed, he's still alive. Not for long though. SHIELD wouldn't leave him in a cell longer than absolutely necessary, and after the losses that SHIELD has suffered in the last few days, Fury will be eager to see Loki punished, paying for his crimes with his life.

And as much pity as I feel for him, with his torturous stitches and his lost detachment from any kind of affection and family, he did almost destroy the earth, and he did possess my mind and force me to betray my own world.

There is nothing I can do anyway, I tell myself in reassurance. I can't go anywhere, not while I'm locked up, injured, in a cell. Even if I wanted to help the psychopathic, unstable, destructive god of mischief, I couldn't. He was just going to suffer the consequences of his crimes. But in my time with him, I think I might have finally understand why he was doing what he did. While he possessed me, I had my chance to see the world through his eyes, the sad, unloved not-brother of everyone's hero, with a failed attempt to take over a mortal world and nothing to show for it except a bloody, stitched together mouth, and a few more scars.

_Hello, Clint._

And it's then that I realize that there is a mirror in my hospital room prison. And it's then that I see him reflected in it, stitches bloodier than ever, pale skin marred by bruises and cuts.

_Did you really think that you could get rid of me that easily?_

_**To Be Continued**_


	16. Sequel Teaser Chapter

**Hi, darlings! May I present the teaser for the as of yet unnamed sequel to this story? yay. My favorite part about this is that it's actually the END of chapter 1. I'm not even giving you the whole thing. What kind of person am I? Just kidding. I haven't written the whole thing yet. I'm excited for the sequel, because these two are my favorite characters to angst about. Love you all! Review because I love reviews. They make me happy. I will make some kind of announcement in here when Chapter One of the sequel goes up incase you're subscribed to this story and don't want to miss anything. Enjoy!**_  
_

_Clint. They're coming to kill me tonight._

Loki's voice echoes in my mind as I frantically try to loose the cuff on my left wrist. They trusted me, or they trusted the cuffs, enough to leave me overnight with only one set of cuffs pinning me to my bed instead of my usual cuffs-on-both-wrists routine. I don't know why I'm doing this, I don't know why I would want to save him, but I know that I cannot let SHIELD kill him. The IV in my arm tugs as I pull my cuffed arm anxiously, and I pause and look at it. Then the IV is out and the monitors are going ballistic, but I don't have to listen to them for long, because the lock is picked and I am out the door, not before grabbing my bow and my knives that have been kept across my hospital prison, in plain sight to taunt me.

How the hell am I supposed to find him? The SHIELD headquarters are like a maze, and I don't have much time.

_Left. Go left, and then down the stairs._

I ignore my throbbing wrist, pretend not to see the blood smearing all over my arm, and I do as he says. I find him in the cavernous basement of SHIELD, in a square glass case like a collector's action figure. He is sitting in the middle on the floor, eyes locked on me as I step out of the shadows. I don't break eye contact as I knock his only two guards unconscious and he smiles at me once we're alone in the room.

I push to button to release him from his prison and he stands up, slowly, painfully. He winces a bit from his injuries, and winces even more from the pain of his stitches.

"Wait," I say. He stops in the doorway, confused. I pull my knife out and step towards him, into the cell so that I can see better.

He steps back, carefully, but threatened. _Clint. What are you doing?_

I don't say anything. I bring the knife closer to his mouth and let it slide under one of the stitches before pulling it forward, maybe a bit sharper than necessary, but he deserves it. The coarse black thread slices in half.

And Loki collapses to the ground, his back heaving violently, entire body, which has grown progressively leaner and frailer in his time being punished, shaking on the concrete floor. I kneel beside him, more worried than I should be for his wellbeing, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

_NO._

I jerk back.

_No more._

And then the sirens go off, and the room goes red and the cell door begins to slowly shut. If we don't move fast, we'll be trapped in there together to be killed.


	17. Chapter 17

Hi darlings!

First chapter of the sequel is up!

It's called "Liars and Killers."

I hope you guys love it!


End file.
